-Infantalizing North Korea, Hankyoreh
-The Real North Korea, Korean Quarterly
-Taking It to the Streets (in the GDR), Huffington Post
-The Paradoxes of the Pacific Pivot, Hankyoreh
-The Secret History of Yugoslavia, Foreign Policy In Focus
-The Velvet Divorce, Hankyoreh
-Eating History, Hankyoreh
-When Soft Power Fails, Hankyoreh
-Afghanistan: Avoiding Default, Foreign Policy In Focus
-North Korea’s Nuclear Theater, 38North
-Obama: The Legacy Term? Hankyoreh
-From Pacific Pivot to Green Revolution, Foreign Policy In Focus
-The Islamophobic Fringe, Hankyoreh
-Dumb and Dumber, TomDispatch
-Korea and the 2012 Elections, Hankyoreh
-Playing the Pundit, Huffington Post
-North Korea and Disneyland, Hankyoreh
-South Korea: Stuck in the 20th Century? Inter Press Service
-The 250, Foreign Policy In Focus
-The Limits of Information in North Korea, Hankyoreh
-First Look at The Pundit, DC Theatre Scene
-Assad and His Droogs, Foreign Policy In Focus
-Guarding the Empire from Four Miles Up, Inter Press Service
-Big Meetings, Foreign Policy In Focus
-Frenemies, Foreign Policy In Focus
-E-War, Foreign Policy In Focus
-Spying on the North, Hankyoreh
-America the Serial Killer, Foreign Policy In Focus
-Jeju Island: Paradise with a Dark Side, Washington Post
-Creating the Muslim Manchurian Candidate, TomDispatch
-Beyond the Golden Couples of Pyongyang, 38North
-Running Against Islam, Other Words
-Smart Mouth, Washington Post
-My Backlogged Pages, The New York Times
Infantalizing North Korea
Political cartoonists love to portray North Korea as an irrational and infantile force. It’s either a baby with a nuclear rattle or a little truant in need of a timeout. The relative youth of the country’s leader Kim Jong Un, encourages such representations, but the practice predates his ascension to power. According to the dictates of their profession, cartoonists must exaggerate to make their points. But these exaggerations also frequently show up in the comments of pundits and politicians, who need not resort to caricature. So, for...
read moreThe Real North Korea
Any book that purports to tell the story of the “real North Korea” runs the risk of serious overhype. North Korea, after all, is perhaps the least understood, least accessible, and least research-friendly country in the world. It has been called an “intelligence black hole.” Journalists rarely visit, and when they do they can’t just interview anyone they please. Historians rarely visit, and when they do they don’t have access to the archives. Only a small number of tourists are allowed in each year and then only to select sites....
read moreTaking It to the Streets (in the GDR)
The home movies show a bunch of young kids doing skateboard stunts all around their neighborhood. Without the sound, the action could be taking place almost anywhere. The kids have clothes and haircuts that look like the late 1970s, the town they live in has a prefab drabness. But their goofiness and exuberance is universal. Look a little closer and you’ll see that their skateboards are homemade. And none of their clothes is branded. The cars on the street are quite small. There are no billboards. After a while you realize: this ain’t...
read moreThe Paradoxes of the Pacific Pivot
The “Pacific pivot” of the United States is nothing new. At the same time, it doesn’t really exist. And yet, even though it doesn’t exist, this pivot is partly responsible for the escalation of tensions in and around the Korean peninsula. How can all three of these statements be simultaneously true? Such are the paradoxes of the U.S. shift in attention toward the Pacific Rim. The Obama administration made a big splash with its announcement of a rebalancing of U.S. foreign policy. But it is in fact something that the Clinton...
read moreThe Secret History of Yugoslavia
In the 6th century, in the Byzantine capital of Constantinople, the historian Procopius penned an account of the misdeeds of the emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora. The Secret History is a compelling account of the court intrigues of a treacherous emperor in a crumbling empire. That Justinian enjoyed a high reputation, the result of the military victories of his brilliant general Belisarius, vast expenditures on public infrastructure, and the numerous panegyrics of sycophantic followers, only made the Secret History that much more...
read moreYou Don’t Know Squat
It was breathtaking. We emerged from the forest on the outskirts of Moscow and saw, looming above the tall grass, an enormous ruined palace. It was 1985, and I was studying Russian at the Pushkin Institute. We heard a rumor about a grand edifice, the unfinished palace of Catherine the Great, that was moldering not far from where we were staying in Moscow. We took the subway to the end of the line, tramped through a forest and a field until we came upon the ruins of the great hall. The walls were still standing, and we walked the length of the...
read moreEating History
The GDR Museum in Berlin is actually two museums in one. And these two parts, both devoted to everyday life in the German Democratic Republic, subtly contradict one another. That might not have been the intention of the museum founders. But this tension actually captures the ambiguities of East Germany and the ambivalence that many Germans feel today about the erstwhile communist state. The experience inside the main part of the museum is quite interactive. You can put on headphones and watch TV shows from East Germany, walk into an...
read moreWhen Soft Power Fails
The oldest Chinatown in the world is not in New York or San Francisco or even Yokohama. It is in Manila, a fact that comes up often when Beijing talks about its longstanding connection to the islands that lie about 600 miles to the southeast. Similarly, China boasts of its three Confucius Institutes in the Philippines where Filipinos can learn Mandarin and appreciate the many facets of Chinese culture. Since 2011, Chinoy TV has also spread the Confucius Institute message to all the Filipinos who can’t physically attend the cultural...
read moreEscape from Ignorance and Chalga
There is a joke in Bulgaria. What are the two ways out of the current crisis? Terminal One and Terminal Two. Those would be, of course, the terminals at the Sofia airport. An enormous number of people have left Bulgaria since 1989. Over the last quarter century or so, the population dropped from approximately 9 million to approximately 7.3 million people. Some of the population reduction is the result of a low birthrate. But the rest just left. In 2011, Bulgaria earned the dubious distinction of topping the list of the world’s most rapidly...
read moreSerbia’s Strategic Ambiguity and the EU
Serbia this week adopted new guidelines for its talks with Kosovo. As usual, the Serbian parliament declared that it would never recognize the independence of the breakaway region. This was not a surprise. But the parliament also called for more autonomy for ethnic Serbians living in Kosovo. On the face of it, this latter statement seems of a piece with the refusal to recognize Kosovo’s independence. But it is actually quite the opposite, for it implies two things. First, Serbia no longer harbors any hopes of asserting direct control over...
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